I've a poem in the Typo. Thank you Adam and Matt. You can also find this poem in The Black Eye.

Here is the funniest video from 1987

It is time to tell you i have four blows in the new Softblow. They're from a manuscript called I WASH MY FACE IN THE SOUND OF WATER RUNNING.

Long month. My brother got married. I spent time in RI with this fine leafmouth. Some time at home with friends. My mom had an art show. Patrick played his first show in a long time. I read in NYC with John Murillo. And though I lived there for 7 years, I read in Boston for the first time with Emily & Josh, thanks to Jessica Bozek.Eat. Slept. Saw Danzig & the Celtics lose big.

Here is something i relate to. Its about returning to something you once knew. Young Brian was an underexplored metalhead. I learned to play guitar by memorizing Ride The Lightning.

Then I discovered indie rock & punk when things were just getting good and I seriously think it ruined me. Young Brian died for a while. But now he's back and this is what he's been June listening to.

Megadeth - Peace Sells...But Who's Buying
Nachtmystium - Addicts: Black Meddle 2
Leviathan - Massive Consparicy Against All Mankind
Von - Satanic Blood Angel
Trouble - Psalm 9
Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengence
Danzig - Deth Red Sabaoth
Whiplash- Ticket to Mayhem
Cave in - Until Your Heart Stops
Suicidal Tendencies - s/t
Metallica - Kill Em All
Dismember -...Like An Evflowing Stream
Darkthrone - F.O.A.D


Have you checked out the Eclipse. A great collection of L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E po online. Clark Coolidge, Lyn Hejinian, Bernadette Mayer, Bruce Andrews. All great stuff from unaffordable paraphernalia.

There is even Rae Armantrout's first book, Extremities.

The bird that can sing and will not sing must be made to sing.

My Two Dads (Ben E & I) are putting on a reading tomorrow night with Macgregor Card, Chris Martin, & Matthew Klane. All details here

***

On Friday Im making it in Brooklyn at the Earshot Reading Series. Please come, or EG will black eye everyone.

7:30 PM @ Rose Live Music w/ John Murillo. Mike Soto, Samantha K. Smith & Martin Rock. invite

***

Poets for Living Waters--------a good stop for thought.

Larry Fagin* I'll Be Seeing You: Poems 1962-1976 (Full Court Press, 1978)

An Ideal Life

When the sun shines
I'm up witht he birds
orange blue red green

bath breakfast walk
across the city
visit and talk

with P, C M, & E
home again write
rest and read

A light lunch
letters to D
K, F, R & T

records and the radio
a substantial dinner
go to a show

Back home exercise
smoke some dope
close my eyes

Do You know Anna Swir?

I Knocked My Head against the Wall

by Anna Swir

As a child

I put my finger in the fire

to become

a saint.

As a teenager

every day I would knock my head against the wall.

As a young girl

I went out through a window of a garret

to the roof

in order to jump.

As a woman

I had lice all over my body.

They cracked when I was ironing my sweater.

I waited sixty minutes

to be executed.

I was hungry for six years.

Then I bore a child,

they were carving me

without putting me to sleep.

Then a thunderbolt killed me

three times and I had to rise from the dead three times

without anyone’s help.

Now I am resting

after three resurrections.

***

All poets are matchstick men.

The Best Spring into Summer Poetry Book

Jon Woodward * Rain (Wave Books, 2006)

but the house sparrows
are mating again each on top
of the other or sideways
flapping and chirping they're so
immodest so indiscriminate with each

other although it doesn't look
like it actually feels good
it looks like some voltage
is making them do it
but they do it regardless

and you don't see them
screaming in pain unless that's
what all that chirping is
we meanwhile couldn't have asked
for all our free will

Jon,

I am thinking of opening a hot dog cart.

Please advise.

Here is a book I've read four times, now available from Octopus

How by Emily Pettit
Staple-bound
Edition of 200

26 pages
$8 (includes shipping)

There is also a new issue of Saltgrass starring Lisa Jarnot, Paige Ackerson-Kiely, Natalie Lyalin, Sandra Simonds, Laura Eve Engel, Tristan Tzara, Gabe Durham, Maged Zaher, Jennifer
Denrow, Catherine Meng, and Mark Yakick.

Jennifer Denrow's chapbook FROM CALIFORNIA, ON will be the next release from Brave Men Press this fall. Some of those poems appear in the issue. Get a sneak.




I blurbed a book. This book. My first blurb. Luckily I didnt have to lie. I loved the book. It is Bird Any Damn Kind by Lucas Farrell, just out on Caketrain Books. Read pieces and buy here

Last Night You Showed Me Larry Fagin

Twelve Poems

A balloon
is going up
filled with problems.

When I think
of the thought
machines

I whistle
softly
to myself.

*

Self

In my pale
face
is a grim

mask,
but I have
to laugh.

My arm
is a bone —
I

love
it
so.

*

a red
tin pan
of tan
doom

*

Gravity
pulls
me
down

so
hard
I
can

only
say
my
name.

*

"When my head
goes too fast
I get out
and walk."

*

The evil eye
is ridiculous,
but it exists.

*

Personal

I'd like
to keep
myself

out
of this. . .
this. . .

whatever
you
call it.

*

It's too easy
to say
yes,
now—

difficult
to think,
say,
now.

*

I get
the idea
I can die
anytime,
then
I forget
it.

*

When a tree falls
on your head,
it says yes
or no.

*

I walk
you walk
we walk

through
each
other

into
our
selves

Have you read The Black Eye? If you have, would you mind sharing your thoughts on Good Reads?

***

I've got some books to read.





Nate Pritts * Unrequited Sonnets :Bird to Feather (self released chapbook, 2010) -
Written in one day November 2009

"It's Novemeber, it's Syracuse.
It's Dear Hearther: Hello. You'r in Chicago. Phillip Sydney
is dead & I'm lonley without you. Matt is lonely since
his foot broke loose. He is filled with phlox. He is howling
for his foot. Gabi is lonely. Gina is in Saginaw. Annie
is in Tucson & Matt's on narcotics in Cinncinat. I'll show you
I'm better. Dear Feather: I'm thinking about words.



Michael O'brien* Sleeping & Walking (Flood, 2007)

"work against correspondence, the
world is not a
book, everything is
not something else, you
could look it up"

We had a BBQ then a reading in the Backyard

by Forrest Gander

From Conjunctions

Muse

What words go with crossing? Orange and security and ventriloquist. This is a special message. The movie is unbearable and there isn’t even a movie. The condensation of a fart poured into a plastic mold and set in the window like sushi or landscape. The way he laughed, I hated him more than his own mother. It wasn’t really a special message but the same message as always. As a tapeworm sucks nutrients from your experience. Which is the reason, duh, for your throbbing sadness. But to extract it, you’ll need to place the honey-word at the tip of your tongue and wait to lure the worm upward. Just when you feel it twitching at the back of your throat, making you cough and retch at once, you’ll have to stick out your tongue as far as it goes. There’ll be one chance, just one, as the worm stretches for the honey-word. That’s when you pinch its head between your fingers. Too gently, it snaps back like a rubber band. Too hard, you kill it and in its death spasm, it evacuates all its eggs inside you.

I made this video for my mom using stolen Mark Leidner technology. It is of an EE Cummings poem. The best mother poem ever.

My mom makes rad pastels. Would you believe she's only been doing it a year?

Sometimes she makes these

Happy Mothers Day, Mom. I like where I come from.

Ive Spring Fever. For books. Ive acquired all these new titles I only now have time for. Here are my two favorites. Mothers, lock up your manuscripts.





Julie Doxsee is one my favorite writers out there now. Her new Objects for a Fog Death.


Aaron Kunin's The Sore Throat is profound in its reserved wildness. His new chapbook Cold Genius is great too.